Davidson judicial races attract candidates

Jan. 14, 2014

Carol Soloman

Written by

Michael Cass

The Tennessean

Jon Peeler

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With Davidson County judicial elections coming up in May, candidates have begun to declare their interest in the 30 judgeships that will be up for grabs.

Attorney Jon Peeler announced Monday that he’s running for the Circuit Court seat held by Judge Carol Soloman in Division VIII. Circuit Court Judge Phil Smith, who was appointed by then-Gov. Phil Bredesen in 2009 and elected in 2010, recently announced he’ll seek re-election in Division IV.

Meanwhile, attorney Joy Smith Kimbrough held a kickoff event Friday for her campaign for the Criminal Court Division I judgeship, and attorney Allegra Walker announced that she’ll run for General Sessions Court, Division IV.

Neither Kimbrough nor Walker has formally qualified to run, according to county records, but Kimbrough said she plans to file her qualifying petition as early as today. Walker, who picked up her petition on Dec. 23, said Monday that she turned it in on Jan. 2.

Primary elections for the judicial positions, as well as court clerk posts, sheriff, district attorney and a few other offices, will be held May 6. The winners of the county’s Democratic primaries typically have gone on to win the August general election by default, though the Davidson County Republican Party has made noise about being more competitive this year.

Davidson County Election Commission records show that 61 people have picked up qualifying petitions for the primaries, and 28 have already qualified, including Peeler and Smith. The deadline to file a qualifying petition is noon on Feb. 20.

At this point, none of the 28 official candidates are Republicans.

All but four of the 28 are running for judicial positions; the other four are incumbents in other posts running for re-election, most of them in and around the court system: Public Defender Dawn Deaner, Register of Deeds Bill Garrett, Circuit Court Clerk Richard Rooker and Juvenile Court Clerk David Smith.

The qualified candidates also include 18 incumbent Chancery, Circuit, Criminal and General Sessions judges and six attorneys looking to move to the bench. Attorneys Adam Dread (Division IX), Blake Freeman (VIII), Jay Norman (IX), Edward Ryan (IX) and Vince Wyatt (IV) are each seeking one of the 11 General Sessions seats, while Peeler is the only challenger seeking any other judgeship at the moment.

Soloman, first elected in 1998, picked up a qualifying petition in November but has not filed it.

Contact Michael Cass at 615-259-8838 or mcass@tennessean.com. Ask him a question on Twitter @tnmetro.